Top Ten Things One Can Learn in an RV

10. Bugs brains really do squish onto the windshield. Usually their bodies are left fairly intact. I’m thinking that we’ll have to do our next Homeschool Science Project on labeling the bugs we are collecting on our giant windshield as we drive northeast.

9. Parking by a highway can produce a kind of white noise that is similar to the ocean. Oh, a train whistle too…hmm…an ocean liner perhaps?

8. I still have an imagination at age 35…I’m pretending that I’m at a resort by the ocean and not parked in an RV Park in the middle of someone’s farm right off the highway…yes. That IS the ocean I hear…not the semi-trucks and the train flying by. Ahh…paradise.

7. I can laugh. I must laugh to get through this ordeal that is my life. The hilarity is vast from pushing my grocery cart laden with groceries to my “house” parked on the outskirts of the lot, to eating Subway in the Wal-Mart parking lot with my family, to the fact that I’m sitting in the middle of a field right now by the highway actually feeling the vibration of that train still rolling by…and don’t even get me started on how hysterical it is to actually pee while driving down the road. I never cease to be amused at that fact.

6. The RV can be smaller than 350 Square Feet. In fact, quite a bit when your brand new hydraulic pump quits and the slides don’t move out unless you bang on the hydraulic pump with a rubber mallet and move it out inch by inch. (This is also giggle inducing) 1 hour later, after banging away at the motor, that extra 2 feet feels gigantic. I’m going to start doing carpet angels while it’s out.

5. I am thankful for people who work on the weekends. Unlike those who work for our RV company in the Technical Help Department. I mean, one can’t drive until jacks are up and the slides are back in and one can’t put them up and in without a working hydraulic pump, but what the heck? Service people need a break too. Coffee anyone?

4. We will need to purchase the extended warranty. Guess I’ll need to get a job. Maybe I can offer my services as an RV Housekeeper. I’ll get paid by the minute since it takes only about half an hour to clean one of these. Or maybe I can get a job in the Technical Help Department for Monaco. I hear they keep great hours.

3. Humming keeps big RV’s on the road in high winds. At least that is what I keep telling myself while my husband drives dangerously close to the side of the road and as I keep myself from screaming by humming as loudly as I can. It works. Like Magic.

2. Wi-Fi doesn’t mean High Speed. I’m sure you all knew that. But I didn’t. Until tonight when it took me two and a half hours to check my email and I still couldn’t reply to anyone. So if you are one of my friends who is waiting for a reply, be patient. I’m not mad at you or ignoring you or distancing myself emotionally. I just can’t make this internet connection any faster.  Maybe it’s because I’m at an ocean resort in the middle of Paradise.

1. And the number one thing I can learn while living in this RV is gratefulness. I am grateful for this weird experience to teach me gratefulness. As I stare out the window (between bug guts) at the world going by, I’m noticing things like how I’m seemingly chasing Spring across the country. I get to experience it twice—once in an Oklahoma State Park and now as I travel. The purple on the Crepe Myrtles is bright here in the Northern part of the country—the trees just beginning to bud and it is spectacular to see it in its beauty for the second time this year. What a gift! And tonight I was thrilled to inhale deeply the smell of this field (ocean) after receiving a good soaking today. It smells like Minnesota grass and childhood. I wanted to take my shoes off and sink my toes in. To be grateful, one has to slow down enough to notice what is around them. And that is exactly what this RV has done for me. Helped me to slow down, breathe in and live the moment.